


The Deeds of Men

by Fereael



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Fix-It, M/M, Reincarnation, Slow Burn, THEY WILL BE HAPPY DAMN IT, the canon ending can bite me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2019-09-26 23:56:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17151431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fereael/pseuds/Fereael
Summary: "In every age, in every place, the deeds of men remain the same"Ever since he can remember young Aslan has been haunted by nightmares and the ghosts of memories without any clear source. Now, at age 16, Aslan is once again plunging into the heart of New York's underworld in pursuit of vengeance but as he searches for his mother's killer he finds himself presented with another riddle in the form of references to a mysteries person know as "Ash Lynx"Or a post-GOL reincarnation AUBecause some endings were never meant to stick





	1. First the Colors

Chapter 1 First the Colors

First the colors.  
Then the humans.  
That’s usually how I see things.  
Or at least, how I try.  
_HERE IS A SMALL FACT_  
_You are going to die_.  
-Death, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

    Colors. So many colors blues, and reds, and yellows, colors of the morning. There were other colors too, pale skin and blonde hair and green, beautiful, radiant, green. The green of her baby’s eyes. There had been so little beauty in her life, yet here, here was beauty, here was radiance, and here was what she lacked but wanted him to have, so once again she named him for the dawn.

      ***

"Aslan? What sort of name is Aslan anyway?"

All the children laughed.

"It's like that lion from the Narnia books, isn't it? What kind of mother names her kid after some dumb lion anyway?"

 More laughter.

“It's not after the lion! It's the old Hebrew word for Dawn!”

“Hebrew? What, you Jewish?"

    “Ya, so what if I am?" He snapped back. He knew where this was going. He'd heard it too many times before, and it wasn't really about his name or his religion or any of the other things they shouted at him about. This was about his blonde hair and his green eyes and his good grades and the way that every adult around them was always praising all three. He had heard it all before, both the complements and the jeers. At this point they made him equally sick. Honestly it was a little strange how sick he was of the compliments. The insult made sense, he'd been sick of those from the first moment he'd heard them, anyone would be, but the complements? He thought he'd heard them a hundred times, a thousand times, over and over again, year after year after year, which really didn’t make much sense because he was only seven. It was almost as though…

     More laughter interrupted his preoccupation. It usually did. More laughter and, ah yes, there it was, a shove from behind. Aslan twisted, trying to push the boy’s hands away from him, and someone else shoved him from the other side. Aslan pivoted, slapping at the new set of hands and he felt a third person shove into him. This time, however, he ignored his new assailant, choosing instead to slam into the boy in front of him. The boy, who was probably about two years older than Aslan, stumbled backward with a shout of alarm, raising his hands to shield his face as Aslan shoved his shoulder into the boy as hard as he could and slammed a fist into the boy's jaw. Then Aslan grunted and doubled over as he felt a fist slam into his gut. It hurt but it didn't surprise him. He had already that known he was out numbered and outmatched, known that he was in for a beating the moment the boys came around the corner of his apartment building.

     There were five of them. Most of them were a year or two older than he was. Their leader, his downstairs neighbor, a kid called Arthur, was three years older than him. They went to school together. Arthur had been held back a year and Aslan had skipped two, so as a result they had ended up in the same class and despite everything, despite the fact that Aslan was the youngest kid in the class and Arthur was the oldest, Aslan was still doing better than him. Aslan was doing better than everyone else too, Arthur wasn't special, but that fact didn't seem to mollify Arthur particularly. If anything, it just meant that when it came time to beat up Aslan Arthur had plenty of helpers.

    After they were finished with him Aslan just lay on the ground, panting and gasping and waiting for his air to return. He supposed he was crying but he did it silently, just teardrops, no sobs or anything that would draw attention to him. He had learned that it was better that way. Besides, the last thing he wanted was to give the other boys the satisfaction of hearing him sob, and it wasn’t like it would've done him any good.

     When his breath came back, he thought about picking himself up and going home but, judging by the position of the sun, it was still afternoon. He couldn't go home yet. Going home would've meant admitting that he hadn't gone to baseball, again, and he couldn't bear to see the look in his mother's eyes when she asked him why. He’d never been able to give her a satisfactory answer because, the truth was, he wasn't quite sure why himself. Baseball had been his mother's idea. They didn't have much money so paying for afterschool activities wasn't really an option, but she'd managed to find a baseball coach who was willing to add him to the team for next to nothing. She'd done it because of how often he came home with bruises or a split lip. She thought that, if he had somewhere to go after school that was supervised, it might keep him safe. She thought he might even make friends. Maybe she would've been right to, but there was something about it, something about baseball, that made his skin crawl. Oh, not the sport itself, that was fine, although he'd never really been into sports, but being on the team, that was what bothered him. He didn't know why but, for whatever reason, just the sight of his baseball coach, of any baseball coach, made him want to run for the hills.

     So he did run, run and hide. Sometimes he spent the afternoons on the school playground or behind the gym, sometimes he spent them closer to home, like today when he'd hidden behind the apartment building. Wherever it was though, the hiding places never lasted long, a few days or a couple of weeks at most, and then Arthur and his guys would find him and hit him, and he'd have to start looking for a place to hide all over again. He'd thought about trying to be proactive about it, wondering if he played stupid and stopped outperforming them in school then they might leave him alone. He'd even tried it for a week and it seemed like it might've been working, sort of. They still laughed at him and taunted him, this time for the mistakes that he hadn't needed to make, but they hadn't felt the need to hunt him down. Then, at the end of the week, his mother had gotten the phone call from his teacher and she’d looked so sad as she explained to him what the word scholarship meant and after that, well after that he decided that maybe there were worse things than the occasional beating.

     So now he just lay there, letting his breath come back and staring up, up, up, at the towering buildings of the Chicago skyline and above that the wide, empty, blessedly open sky. As he watched two birds flew across his field of vision, pigeons he thought, or maybe doves. Whatever they were, they would beautiful. Some small voice at the back of his brain told him otherwise "winged rats" it said, “that's what New Yorkers call them.” But he ignored it. After all he was from Chicago, and he had never been to New York, at least he was pretty sure he hadn't, and they were beautiful. Anything that could fly was beautiful.

     Slowly Aslan reached out his arm to the side. There was an old metal trashcan next to him. Until Arthur and his gang found him he'd been using it as a back rest while he daydreamed but it had another purpose for him as well. Though not immediately obvious the trashcan had been strategically placed over a natural rut, allowing Aslan to slide his arm underneath it. When he pulled his arm back a plastic bag, the kind that they delivered newspapers in, came with it. He reached into the bag and pulled out what it had protected, two books and a volume of manga, his latest haul from the public library. Aslan pushed aside the two novels and picked up the manga volume. It was from a series called Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles. He had always liked that name. Tsubasa meant “Wing” in Japanese which had always seemed fitting to him because wings were what he thought of when he thought of Japan, wings and flying and maybe something else that he couldn't quite put his finger on, something warm. He wasn't quite sure why. He had never been there either, never, as far as he knew, even met anyone from there, but it was comforting to him and sometimes that was all that really mattered. He'd stay there and read until it got late enough that he could pretend that he'd gone to baseball and then he'd go home.

That night the nightmares began.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Several years ago, in order to force myself to focus on original fiction I promised myself that I was finished writing Fan Fics. I... was wrong, judging by the way I've been feeling lately about Banana Fish and other things... very very wrong. Anyway I hope you all enjoy my return to fan fiction!  
> If you enjoy kudos and comments would be very much appreciated. I'm still figuring out wether this is going to be a shortish fic (think 5-7 chapters) or something longer so your feedback will help me figure that out and if you want to cry over the BF ending with me my twitter is https://twitter.com/Fereael


	2. A Cry in the Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Aslan was 12 everything changed.  
> Also Arthur gets what he has coming ;)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's the first Thursday without a new episode and I'm crying. Wrote this update to help get myself though the lack. Enjoy!

Chapter 2 A Cry in the Night  
  
 Don't leave me alone  
A cry in the night  
Of anguish heart striking  
Of soul killing fright  
Live for my living of my living  
Or else I must die  
Don't leave me alone  
A world herd that cry  
-Menoly, Dragonsinger, by Anne McCaffrey

They had found him again. It had been a full two months since the last time, Aslan was getting good at hiding, but they had found him again. Aslan tasted the blood from his split lip and clenched and unclenched swelling fingers. Probably not broken he decided, just bruised and numb. Arthur had stomped on them with a truly indecent amount of glee. The 12-year-old, sighed dropping his hand back onto the pebbles of the rooftop and continuing to stare up into the open sky like he had been before Arthur and his gang had come out onto the roof of their building to smoke and found him.

He supposed they had gotten lucky this time, or at least that he had gotten unlucky. They'd certainly looked surprised to see him, as though they'd given up looking for him. Aslan figured that that Arthur hated him enough that he'd never stop looking but, as for the others, they were probably getting sick of beating up one kid over and over again. It wasn't like the beatings changed anything, after all he still outperformed them on everything, and it wasn't like he made them particularly entertaining either. Aslan didn't scream, he didn't cry, he didn't even fight back. That last one seem to infuriate Arthur the most, at least that's what he'd been shouting about when he stomped on Aslan's fingers, but it just seemed to make the other boys vaguely sick, as though his lack of resistance brought home to them the fact that their target was, after all, one skinny kid younger than any of them.

That wasn't why he did it though. if he was being totally honest with himself, and he usually tried to be, he wasn't quite sure why he did it. It was kind of like how he'd run away from the baseball coach all those years ago, terrified yet not quite sure what he was afraid of. No, that wasn't quite true, Aslan had some idea what, precisely, it was about the idea of a baseball coach that frightened him, even if he hadn't always. The things he had seen in his dreams, in his nightmares, those were the things he was running away from. Aslan shivered a little at the memory. 

No, this wasn't quite like the baseball coach. He wasn't afraid of fighting or violence, not in the slightest, and he wasn't a pacifist either, definitely not. No, but there was fear involved, fear of what he wasn't sure, and it wasn't just fear either. It was some, some strange nebulous feeling, something deep within him that screamed out that once he stained his hands with blood he could never undo the damage, never take that moment back. Some feeling him being violent, an especially defending himself, would only cause suffering to the people he cared about, person he cared about. It wasn't like Aslan had more than one. He never met his father and it wasn't like he had any friends; the combination of Arthur and the nightmares had seen to that. No, the only person Aslan was close to was his mother, but he loved her, he always had, and the last thing he wanted was to cause her any grief. Not that he actually knew how fighting back would hurt her. All he really knew for sure was that the feeling had started when he was eight, and he hadn't fought back since.

As Aslan lay there, pondering it all again, the feelings and the dreams, in the things he couldn't quite seem to remember, he felt a raindrop splashed down lightly against his cheek, and then another, and then the third. He sighed. It was time to go in. He'd been hoping to wait a little longer, at least until his fingers were moving properly again, that way it would be easier to hide his injuries from his mother, but he didn't really feel like getting rained on.

As he got to his feet and headed for the stairs, Aslan turned his mind pondering problems a little nearer to home, problems like his teacher, the one with the wandering hands. The teacher had told his mother that he needed tutoring and should stay after school for it, his mother had been pleased that his teacher was taking such an interest in him but Aslan wasn't. He knew all too well where this was going, the dreams had taught him that. 

He had actually been supposed to stay for the first of these "tutoring" sessions that day, which was how he had ended up hiding on the roof. Still, Aslan knew that he needed a better plan, because, unlike the baseball coach, he had a feeling he couldn't dodge this one forever. It was like how he couldn't dodge Arthur and his gang forever, or that creepy police officer who was always getting handsy and offering him a ride home, or, or Dino.

Aslan shivered again at the memory of the name. The school shrink, his mother kept insisting he see, said that Dino was just a figment of his overactive imagination, just a nightmare. Aslan didn't think much of the shrink and as for Dino being just a bad dream, well he wasn't so sure. It wasn't like he was sure what else the old creep could be but he turned up in Aslan’s nightmares for the first time about a year before and, well, he just felt a bit too real to be nothing more than a nightmare.

The moment that his feet he the landing he knew that there was something wrong. He knew. Blood, he could taste it in the air, a lot of it. He didn't know how but he recognized it instantly and at that moment the "how" didn't matter because the door of his apartment was half open. Immediately Aslan’s whole body tensed, instincts taking over. He ducked back against the banister, into the shadows of the stairwell, a place to observe but be unobserved. His hand went automatically to his waste is the reaching for, what? A gun? He didn't have time to ponder where exactly that particular instinct came from either.

Footsteps. They were coming from inside his apartment. Aslan sank farther back against the wall and waited. The door of Aslan’s apartment was pushed fully open just long enough to admit a man. He was tall, thin and wiry, wearing a black suit and hat, and he had short graying hair. As he exited the apartment the man turned toward the stairs that led down, away from Aslan, so he was unable to get a glimpse of the man's face.

As the man walked across the landing and down the stairs every inch of Aslan’s body thrumed with alarm. He knew the man was dangerous, knew it with every fiber of his being. It wasn't a memory or a dream, just an instinctive feeling, but Aslan knew to trust his instincts, and so he stayed there, frozen, until the man was out of sight.

The moment the man was gone however a new fear gripped him. Mom! Aslan leapt from his hiding place and darted across the landing and through his front door. The smell of blood was stronger here, and some part of Aslan knew exactly what that must mean, what it always meant. He pushed that part of him away, struggling desperately hold off the knowledge for as long as he possibly could. Carefully Aslan padded down the darkened hallway, stopping a few feet in. He reached out to his right, through the doorway that he knew was there and flipped the switch on the kitchen light. He hadn't been wrong.

Everything seemed to freeze inside of Aslan, every single solitary thing. The kitchen looked much as it usually did, slightly gray and grimy but still homey. His cup was still on the plastic top kitchen table from breakfast and there were more breakfast dishes sitting on the counter that he had been supposed to wash after school. Really there was only one difference, but it was a difference big enough to destroy the world. Aslan's mother was lying, facedown, on the cold tile between the sink and the table, her wavy brown hair forming a halo around her head and blood pooling from under her chest.

For a moment Aslan just stood there, frozen and helpless, his hands falling limply to his sides. Then pain, so powerful it might as well have been physical wrecked his entire body. He fell to his knees, gasping and clutching at his stomach and side.  For a few moments his vision blurred and doubled, until he thought he saw another body lying there. Maybe it was just the way that the pale pink of his mother's dress contrasted with the red of the blood around her that brought the image into his mind, he didn't know. What he did know was that for an instant it wasn't his mother he was looking at, but another, a man. The man had hair as black as ravens feathers and the pale pink of his shirt was very similar in shade the color his mother wore, and he too was surrounded by blood. There was pain in that image, so much pain, deep and old and never healed and even without being able to place the man in his memory he knew that he was crying out his name. “Eiji!” Over and over again it ripped from his throat, desperate and pleading, or maybe it was just a memory? The vision past and again Aslan was just a 12-year-old boy, kneeling on the kitchen floor on his hands and knees, shaking and sobbing and calling for his mother.

***

Alsan didn't know how long he stayed like that. It felt like hours but he couldn't be bothered to check. Eventually though he sat back on his heels, tears drying on his cheeks, and stared sadly at his mother's lifeless form. He had known she was gone, known from the instant he entered the room. There hadn't been any point in checking, not when he could so clearly see the bullet wound in the back of her chest. A mark like that meant that the bullet had buried itself in her heart, she would've died almost instantly. He wasn't sure how he knew all of that when he'd never even held the gun before, but he did in the same voice that had told him that the man in the stairwell was dangerous now told him not to question his seemingly impossible knowledge of ballistics.

He had more important things he needed to do. His mother was gone. That was an undeniable fact. The man in the suit had killed her, that was true as well. He didn't know who the man was or why he had done it but Aslan needed to find out, after all, how else was he supposed to get revenge? For if there was one thing that Aslan did know, it was that he wanted revenge. Just the thought of it had anger swelling inside him in the anger cleared his head in a way that his tears hadn’t. He needed information. He needed a plan. He needed, he needed to figure out what to do next.

What was one supposed to do when you found your mother murdered on the kitchen floor? Call the police. The response was automatic and Aslan was actually on the point of getting up and reaching for the kitchen landline when another voice spoke within him. _You can't trust the police_ , it said. _You know better than that right? You'll just end up as a suspect somehow and even if you don't just put you into the foster care system, and you know what happens to kids like you in the foster care system._ Aslan remembered the police officer who kept offering him a ride home, the one who patrolled his neighborhood and would probably respond to his call, the one with the wandering hands. The voice was right. He couldn't trust the police.

So what to do then? If he was going to call the police then he needed to do it soon, since the longer he waited to call after finding his mother's body the more likely it would be that they'd suspect him. But if he wasn't going to call them, then what? He’d definitely be a suspect then. He'd have to run. Where to? His first thought was of Japan but he had neither a passport nor money with which to buy a plane ticket. Somewhere in the country then, New York maybe, or Cape Cod, or possibly even LA. First though he should examine the crime scene, see if he could find anything, any clue that could potentially lead him to his mother's killer.

On shaking legs Aslan stood and crossed the room to stand as close as he could get his mother's body without actually stepping into the pool of her blood. He told himself that he didn't want to risk tracking blood and making himself look even more suspicious but he knew that was a lie, he just couldn't bear to get any closer to her. From that distance he scoured his surroundings, looking for anything, any clue, that might point him in the right direction.

The first thing he noticed was the powder, little bits of white powder clung to the fingers of his mother's outstretched hand and pooled the cracks in the linoleum around her fingers. Powder? Like a drug? _Banana Fish_. A shiver wracked his entire body as the words came unbidden into his mind. Where they had come from he didn't know but he shook them away, they made no sense, nonsense words. Besides, whatever instinct or subconscious thought had brought the words to the forefront of his mind also told him that that was impossible. Briefly his vision blurred and he thought he saw, for an instant, a suitcase falling into flame. Impossible, just an associative memory, nothing more.

Aslan shook his head to clear it of whatever fog was clouding it. He needed to focus. He considered getting closer, close enough to pick up some of the powder on his fingers, but what was he going to do with it? Sniff it? Taste it? That was stupid. It was either something harmless, like flour, or a drug and if it was a drug tasting it or smelling it, or hell even touching it maybe, was a very stupid idea. Still, it was the only thing in the room that seemed off, the only thing besides the obvious anyway, so it was the only clue he had. 

Quickly, without giving himself time to think too carefully about what he was doing, Aslan got to his feet. He walked into their tiny living room and over to his mother's desk. There he froze and just stared down at it for a moment. He fought back another wave of tears, struggling desperately against wave after wave of memories of her sitting at it. It was an old rickety thing. She sat there when she wanted to do taxes or bookkeeping or some other things. He'd never been quite sure what the other things were. For the first time he really started to wonder about them. His mother had been a waitress at a local diner, so what was it that she'd needed to do at the desk anyway.

He reached for the desk drawer and stopped automatically. There were tax forms in the drawer, his mother had always said that he wasn't to go poking through it because she didn't want messing it up. Not that it would matter now, he thought sadly, and opened the drawer. It was empty. Gone was the layer of papers that he always saw when she opened it, and the only thing that remained, clinging the sides of the drawer, were a few grains of white powder. Aslan sucked in his breath. Definitely a drug, it had to be, but why had his mother been hiding it. What was her connection to the stuff. Whatever it was, Aslan decided, it had probably gotten her killed.

He had come to her desk in search of an envelope do used to pick up some of the powder from the floor but this made it easier, now he didn't have to worry about picking up kitchen dust or blood, or get anywhere near the blood. Thought was nauseating. In the back of his mind Aslan supposed that he should keep searching the apartment. After all, it had really just been luck that caused him to go to his mother's desk and stumble across the drawer meaning that there could well be more clues around the place, but he couldn't bear to stay there anymore.

As soon as he had the powder in an envelope in his pocket Aslan went to his small closet of a bedroom and began throwing what he thought he needed into his backpack, a change of clothes, a couple of books, just the necessities. He also grabbed the pocketknife that his mother given him for his last birthday and slid it into the pocket of his jeans. Then he went back into the living room and pushed the TV stand to the side to reveal a loose floorboard. He slid his fingers under it, lifting it to reveal a small hollow with an old cookie tin in it. It was where his mother hid the cash that she kept "in case of emergencies” she'd said. If this wasn't an emergency he didn't know what was. Aslan opened the tin and found, to his relief, that the money was still there. He counted it quickly then slid some of it into his backpack, some into his pocket, and some into the lining of his sweatshirt. He'd be harder to mug with it all split up like that. He knew he should probably go to the kitchen next and grab what there was out of the fridge but he couldn't bear to go back in there, and if he wasn't going to do that then it was time he was gone.

But where was he going? He realized that he hadn't actually determined that part yet. He'd been so focused on leaving that he hadn't thought seriously about anything beyond getting out of the apartment, or had he? The moment he started considering it became obvious. There was only one place for him to go, New York. Briefly he also considered Cape Cod, but he shook that idea way. He wasn't sure what but something inside was telling him that New York was where you went if you wanted to be forgotten in Cape Cod was where you went if you wanted to remember. New York it was then.

As Aslan stepped off of the bottom step, heading for the front door of the dingy apartment building, he heard a low whistle. Turning Aslan saw Arthur and two members of his gang just leaving Arthur's apartment. Arthur grinned wickedly when he saw Aslan.

“Well well. Where are you off to?”

Aslan ignored him and kept walking toward the door.

“No wait, let me guess, you're running away from home?”

Arthur snickered and so did his two friends.

Aslan kept walking.

That seemed to annoy Arthur a little.

“What? Think you're too good to talk to us?”

He stepped up beside Aslan, grabbing his arm. Aslan turned to glare at Arthur who finally got a good look at Aslan’s red eyes and tear stained cheeks.

“What's this what's this?” He asked, his voice filling with glee. “I didn't realize that our little scuffle earlier had you so upset. Is that why you're running away? Or did you get in a fight with your mommy?”

“Arthur!” At the sound of the word “mommy” said in Arthur's mocking tone anger flooded Aslan, burning white-hot.

“Oh? Is the little kitten angry?”

Arthur smirks down at him, a look that faded into bewildered confusion as Aslan slammed into his chest. At 15 Arthur was taller and a lot more muscular than Alsan who had always been delicately built, but Aslan was fast and surprisingly strong and Arthur had become so used to him not fighting back that he'd left himself wide open. He also hadn't known about the pocketknife.

Arthur slammed into the wall with a gasp as the air left his lungs. Arthur's two friends were too stunned to react so all they did was watch slack-jawed with astonishment as the kid who they’d been beating on only that afternoon finally seemed to snap. When he hit the wall Arthur's hand loosened on Aslan’s wrist and Aslan yanked it free before using it to pin Arthur's hand against the wall. At some point, he wasn't quite sure when, the knife had ended up in his other hand. He only hesitated for a moment before memory coiled around him again, memory of Arthur's foot descending on his fingers that afternoon, and another memory, the memory of a knife sliding through flesh. Aslan slashed and Arthur screamed.

Aslan, still shaking, released him, and Arthur sank to the floor, cursing and clutching at his bloodied fingers. Arthur's two friends ran over to him and stood, dumbfounded, staring between Arthur’s injured hand and Aslan, who was once again heading for the door. They were probably in shock that a kid who, until now, hadn't even lifted a finger against them to defend himself would react so violently to such slight provocation, but then they had never understood why Aslan didn't fight back. As for Aslan himself he was done avoiding violence, there was no one left to protect.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Aslan but now he's off to NYC at last! Kudos and comments always appreciated! And if you want someone to cry about Banana Fish with seriously come find me on twitter, seriously I always love talking about it! https://twitter.com/Fereael


	3. Candle in the Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aslan finds a safe harbor and an old friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that it's been so long since the last update! I put this aside temporarily to work on my ending fix-it fic for Banana Fish Fluff week, but now that I've finished writing that I'm back to this! Updates should be a lot more regular in future! Enjoy!

Chapter 3 Candle in the Darkness

For the candles in the darkness  
burning after sorrow  
there's no way to stop this  
we didn't learn  
-Binary Star, Legend of the Galactic Heroes Die Neue These

The bleeding was getting worse. Aslan swore internally, tightening the fingers of his good hand around the gash in his shoulder and begging his legs to run faster dammit! His breath was coming in short sharp gasps and he knew he wouldn't be able to keep this up for long. He tore around corner after corner, ignoring the drunken yells occasionally aimed at him by the people he brushed past. He was starting to get lightheaded but if he collapsed he was done for and he knew it. If he could only make it a little farther…

 but farther to where? Where the hell could he go anyway? No matter where Aslan collapsed those men would find him and with the way he was losing blood during his headlong dash he'd be unable to defend himself a second time. Hell, if he didn't stop and take care of himself soon the men would be of the least of his worries since he’d have bigger problems, like blood loss.

Aslan blinked up at the lights around him, and they swam and blurred in the haze that was forming around his vision. He had his head down running and hadn't really been paying attention to where his feet had been taking him so it actually took him a moment to figure out where he'd ended up but when he did he again swore inwardly. He was in Chinatown and everyone knew that Chinatown, when not jampacked with tourists, was a dangerous neighborhood even by New York standards. Why the hell had his feet brought him here of all places? Still here he was and he'd have to make the best of it. He’d lost the men, at least for now. He'd had a bit of a lead since they hadn't been expecting him to get away and clambering through that concealed back alley had definitely helped, but it was still only a matter of time till they caught up with him.

Frantically Aslan skimmed the rows of storefronts he ran past for anything that he could use as a bolthole but nothing presented itself. He was getting to the point where just collapsing on the pavement was starting to sound like an appealing option when he saw it, just up ahead on his left. It was a restaurant, a small one, with a closed sign on the door, but the lights were still on, as though the staff was still in the process of cleaning up for the night. Aslan didn't pause to wonder why he thought throwing himself on the mercy of the staff of some random restaurant was a good idea or why this restaurant should look any more appealing to him then any of the dozens he had already passed, he just bolted for it, slamming against the door with the last of his strength. It was unlocked and he stumbled through it, his momentum carrying him to somewhere near the center of the restaurants main room before he collapsed. 

For a few moments he just lay there, panting and gasping and bleeding onto the newly mopped tile. Then he heard a shout from what he assumed was the kitchen area.

“Charlie is that you? What's the matter?”

The voice belonged to a woman and it was followed by quick footsteps and a cry as the woman spotted him, the strange boy who was in the process of coloring her floor with stains of red.

A quiet gasp and then the footsteps again, running this time, and Aslan turned to look up just as the woman fell to her knees beside him.

“A-Ash!”

“It’s Aslan.” His voice came out thickly and he was still struggling to get his breath back under control. Still, some detached part of his mind wondered at the woman's reaction. She must, he decided, have mistaken him for somebody else. At the same time some quieter part of his mind wasn't so sure about that, a strange contradiction one he didn't have time to focus on.

The woman nodded. “You looked like… Doesn't matter.” Even as she spoke the woman rolled in the rest of the way onto his back with deft fingers, her eyes taking in his injuries, and Aslan got his first good look at her. She was a small woman, Chinese, probably in her mid-40s, with a pixie cut and a kind face.

“Aslan was it? Stay there! I’ll get the first add kit!” She stood, hurrying back in the direction should come.

“Wait!” he croaked out. His head was throbbing and spinning all at once. “There after me!”

It was a stupid thing to say since the woman would probably respond by calling the police, not that he hadn't already given her reason to do just that, and she’d probably want to know who exactly "they" were. She might even panic and throw him out of her restaurant altogether but there was something about her that he instinctively liked, perhaps something that reminded him of his mother even, and he didn't want to drag her into his mess without even a warning.

 She froze as he spoke turning to look at him for a moment, then she nodded quickly and made her way back to the front door. Without saying a word she locked and bolted it and then she pulled down the blinds on the restaurant’s front window. Then, still without asking him a single question she turned and raced back into the kitchen, reemerging a moment later with a large first aid box in her arms. Quickly she once again knelt on the floor beside him.

“Here, Aslan, I'm going to need to sit you up a little and I'm going to need you to move your hand for me so that I can stop the bleeding.” She said removing antibiotic cream, gauze pads, and ace bandages from her first aid kit as she spoke.

Aslan stared up at her wide-eyed, wondering why she was so calm about finding a strange kid bleeding on the floor of her restaurant, and why it was she was so quick to help him. Normally he would've shied away from the kindness of strangers, knowing as he did that it always came with the price and was scarcely ever actually motivated by kindness, but for some reason this woman felt genuine to him, as though she really did want to do well by him, and besides, in his condition, he’d take all the help he could get.

“ Thanks,” he murmured as she maneuvered him gently into a sitting position against the leg of a nearby table. “um…”

“Nadia,” she supplied. “Nadia Wong.”

The name sent a rush of warm through his body coupled oddly with the feeling of tears prickling at the corners of his eyes. _Strange_ , he thought, and decided that it was probably just lightheadedness talking.

“Thank you Nadia.”

She nodded in acknowledgment of his words pushed his hand to the side, slapping a gauze pad covered in antibiotic cream over the newly exposed gash in his shoulder.

“what happened?” She asked eyeing both it and the smaller cut scrapes and bruises all over Aslan’s body as she began wrapping a bandage around the shoulder.

“A bunch of guys cornered me… A gang… They said I'd been squatting in their territory and that if I wanted to stay there I’d have to pay for it…” He wasn't quite sure why he was telling her this but she had locked the door in order to keep the men from finding him she was bandaging his shoulder so he supposed that his instinctive feeling that he could trust her did make a good amount of sense.

“I see. And what did they do?” Her voice stayed calm, almost conversational, but even through the haziness in his eyes he could see the sudden tension in her shoulders.

“They beat me, but I managed to get away. One of them pulled a knife to try and stop me from escaping. That's where I got this.” He lifted his injured shoulder slightly.

“That's all?”  
  


“yeah.” They'd wanted to do more than that. He'd known it, had seen it in their eyes from the moment they surrounded him, had heard it in their voices. The way they had leered at him, it was what made him fight so hard, what made him ignore the knife when it was pulled. They'd expected fear of the knife to be more than enough of a deterrent for him, and perhaps for another child it would've been, but he knew better, knew that a bloodied shoulder or arm was a small price to pay to avoid… Other things. Never again. He'd sworn it to himself as he ran through the streets, blood trailing from his shoulder and the images from his dreams flashing through his mind. Never again. Some part of him didn't believe he could keep that oath, some part of him we sure that he could never escape it, but still, he'd be damned if he wasn't going to try!

Nadia nodded and some of the tension went out of her shoulders and Aslan wondered if that meant that she'd realized what that gang had really had in mind for him.

“Should I be calling an ambulance or the police?”

“No!” He jerked forward at her words and she had to push him back against the table leg.

“Easy. It's all right, I won't if you don't want me to.”

He blinked up at her, taken aback by how easy that had been. Weren't adults supposed to be more insistent about that sort of thing?

“Why not?” The question was out of his mouth before he could stop it.

“When he was a teenager my brother was in a gang.” She said it calmly but he could see a sudden world of pain and loss blooming in her eyes. “He was always coming home a mess, covered in injuries for me to patch up and so were his friends. The police never protected them, even when they were good people who genuinely wanted to.”

Aslan nodded slightly, intuiting what she wasn't saying, that through her brother she had known plenty of people on the wrong side of the law which was why she had reacted to his presence the way she had. He wondered though, about the pain in her eyes. He didn't like seeing it there and he felt a sudden squirming of guilt in his gut, although he wasn't sure why.

“Is there anyone else I can call for you? A parent or a friend?”

“No.” He shook his head. “Nobody.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I'm a runaway, don't know anyone in the city.”

“What about someone from where you're from?”

He shook his head again. “Never met my dad and mom’s dead so…”

“Dead?” 

He nodded slowly. “She was…  murdered… Two weeks ago… And I don't know why or who did it but I knew they’d put me in the system a-and I knew what would happen to me in there so I ran but cause I ran I bet the cops think I did it so they're probably looking for me so…”

His voice trailed away he felt sobs building at the back of his throat. Then he felt something soft and warm engulf him and he looked up in surprised to find that Nadia had wrapped her arms around him. He froze up at first, not sure how to react to being hugged by someone who was almost stranger but then he felt a wave of exhaustion rushing over him and he thought about his mother and how she had held him like this after Arthur’s gang had beaten him and how much he missed her and how alone he was and he leaned, sobbing, Into Nadia‘s embrace.

She just held him until his sobs slowly quieted and then she put an arm around his shoulders and help to pull him to his feet.

“Come on, you must be exhausted. I'll put you in my brother's old room for tonight and tomorrow I can start feeding you up.”

“Why?” He couldn't help but ask. “why are you being so kind to me? You don't even know me.”

She smiled sadly down at him, as though mourning the fact that, even at his young age, he'd already lost the ability to believe in the kindness of strangers.

“I only had one Brother by blood but there were actually three boys who were like younger siblings to me. You remind me of one of them. I never got the chance do right by him…”

Aslan nodded slowly. So she was sheltering him because he reminded her of her brother? That made sense as far as it went but he still felt like he was missing something.

“But what if those thugs come looking for me?”

“I doubt they’ll come here. My restaurant is protected territory so most people know better, but just in case they don't I'll call Charlie and make sure he keeps a lookout.”

“Who's Charlie?”

“A detective.”

“a cop?” Aslan almost jerked away from her an alarm but she steadied him.”

“Don't worry, he won't tell anyone that you're here and he won't involve the police I promise.”

Aslan looked up at her through narrowed eyes. “How can you be so sure?”

“He's also my husband, and he knows better than to report any guest or friend of mine.” There was a sudden hardness in Nadia's tone and as kind as she had been until that point it occurred to Aslan that maybe this wasn't a woman to cross.

                                                                        ***

Aslan woke to the sound of shouting coming from a nearby room. For a moment he was confused and disoriented, the room was familiar yet strange all at once and the bed was far softer than anything could slept in since his mother's death. Then he became aware of a throbbing pain in his shoulder and that was enough to bring the nights events rushing back to him, well that and the sound of Nadia yelling.

“Not again!” She was shouting. “Charlie. I'm not going to just sit back and watch all over again!”

“Nadia,” the man called Charlie entreated, “think what you're saying. You don't even know this kid!”

“I know enough! I know what will happen to him if we leave him alone out there!”

“I'm not suggesting we put him back on the street Nadia! I'll take him into the station and he’ll be put in foster care!”

Aslan tensed, ready to swing himself out of bed and run for it if he had to. 

“And what do you think might happen to him in there?” Nadia was shouting back. "Charlie he looks just like Ash!”

Aslan blinked at that, remembering the night before and Nadia's talk of someone who had been like a brother to her and that she had called him by that name when he'd first stumbled into her restaurant. Assuming they were the same which he was sure they were, this was the third time this Ash person had come up and he was starting to become curious about him.

“He's not Ash Nadia! I know you still miss him! I know you still feel guilty about what happened! We all do! But this boy isn't him Nadia, he isn't!”

“Did I say he was?” Nadia snapped back. “You aren't listening to me! I didn't say he was Ash I said he looks like Ash! Blonde hair, green eyes, slender build, you don't need me to tell you what that means Charlie! You're the one who handled that investigation for God’s sake! Shorter told me about what happened to Ash and you know it as well as I do if not better!”

“Nadia that was a different time, the city safer now…”

“Not so different! At least not according to him and what those boys tried to do to him last night! And I'm not having it Charlie! You know what happens to kids without anyone to watch out for them in the city! This city killed Ash! It killed Shorter! And I'm not giving it a chance to kill another one! I couldn't save either of them but I can save this boy and so I will, with or without you Charlie Dickens!”

“Nadia…”

“You said it yourself! You said that Aslan’d need to be adopted or put in a foster home, so I'm going to adopt him!”

“Nadia you can't just… I mean that's not how the system works…”

“Why not? You're one of the city's senior detectives, you can arrange the paperwork!”

“Stranger adoption isn't that simple…”

“So say that we aren't strangers! Put down that we knew the boy’s mother, that she and I were friends and that's why he ran away because he was coming to us all along.”

“Nadia I can't just…”

“Yes you can and you will and then we’re getting out of the city!”

“What…but the restaurant…”

“I'm not giving up the restaurant, but those that house your mother left us in the suburbs. Instead of putting it on the market we can move out there. I’ll commute in. Dammit Charlie you're the one who's been saying we should move into something bigger for the last couple of years. I've been refusing because I've been clinging to this place because it's all I've got left of Shorter and even after 20 years I don't want to let my brother go, but the city isn't a safe place for a child like him and I'm not letting it take another boy for me!”

That afternoon Aslan left New York City. He would not return for another four years.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Nadia! It's too bad she was almost entirely cut from the anime. I get why, because they had to cut some stuff to fit the time constraints and she wasn't supper plot relevant for most the series but I still miss her. Anyway with that we have reached what is essentially the end of the prologue. The next chapter is where things start happening for real! Please leave me Kudos or a comment to let me know what you think and come find me on twitter! https://twitter.com/Fereael


	4. Chapter 4 My Silver Screen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this took longer then expected to write but in my defense it's a long one, also college started up again so things have been really busy. I stayed up all night to finish this because I really wanted to get this up but that means that it hasn't been type edited, so please forgive any typos I may not have caught yet. Enjoy!

Chapter 4 My Silver Screen

Just when I close my eyes  
it takes me by surprise  
how clear they come back on the scene  
alive on my silver screen  
faces of those I've loved  
faces of those I've lost  
now they’re altogether  
in my memory  
-A Story of Time, Opening 2 Legend of the Galactic Heroes Gaiden

The second time Aslan stood in front of Nadia's restaurant couldn't have contrasted more with his first visit if that had been his intention. Instead of a chilly night at the beginning of autumn it was a warm morning in early summer. Instead of boy running frantically, his eyes blurred by exhaustion and blood loss, a teenager now stood calmly just outside Chang Di, taking in a neighborhood that he had only glimpsed on his first visit four years earlier. Only one thing hasn't changed and that was the reason for his presence in the city. Aslan had come to New York because he felt instinctively that it was the place where he stood the best chance of unraveling the secret of his mother's murder and he had returned for the same reason. This time though he was not some scared child, half mad with night terrors, dashing through the night, this time he had a plan, a plan that went up in smoke the instant he noticed that there was someone watching Nadia's restaurant.

There was something about the figure, something the drew and held his eye, he wasn't sure what it was exactly but as soon as he started watching the teenager he was glad he had since the guy appeared to be eyeing Aslan’s foster mother's restaurant and Aslan didn't like it. He stood there for another few moments, pretending to take in the street and waiting to see if the guy would move on. He didn't, so Aslan crossed the street and started down the block toward the stranger. 

As he got close he could make out the other teen more clearly. The guy appeared to be a few years older than Aslan, tall, Chinese, wearing jeans and a tank top, and sunglasses. What caught Aslan’s eye however was the guy's head, which had been shaved, except down the center where it had been allowed to grow into a long floppy bright green mohawk.

There was something about that build, that face, that mohawk, something that registered in Aslan’s memory. He tried to grab a hold of it in the first images to come were dream, blurred by the light of day but still present, remembered from those rare nights that hadn't been filled with terror and dread, nights that had been growing blessedly more and more frequent over the last couple of years since around the time when a figure reminiscent of this man had first appeared in them. There was a name somewhere in that dream memory but before Aslan could grasp it he was overwhelmed by a cavalcade of emotions, friendship, camaraderie, grief, guilt, regret, agony, the feel of the cement floor bruising his elbows as he dove for the gun, the cold steel in his hand, the way Arthur laughed and his own tears and…

No. Aslan stumbled against lamppost, clapping one hand to his forehead and digging his nails into the palm of his other hand in an attempt to ground himself. Roughly he pushed the images away, blocking them out blocking out whatever the hell this was, shutting it down before he could end up vomiting on all fours like he had last time. It happened before, like an extension of the nightmares that had haunted him since he was seven, these hallucinations or whatever they were, that wrapped themselves around him, choking him with images and sensations he didn't understand pain and grief he didn't want to feel. Sometimes they came out of nowhere, as though called up by a certain date and certain time but more often they were triggered by something although the triggers never made much sense. 

The most recent bout had begun while he was sitting in his high school's library during a free period, reading through his world history textbook. The class had been 20th-century history and the unit had been an overview of many of the different conflicts that had broken out across the world in the last 50 years or so. Within the textbook these summaries have been broken up by photographs, seemingly chosen at random to fit some sort of quota, of various armies and military groupings loosely connected to the conflicts described in their adjacent sections. Aslan hadn't even been paying much attention to the images until one of them jumped out at him, a group of soldiers at the head of which stood a man in his late 40s, thin and gray-haired with an unpleasant smirk his face. The man seemed to leap out at Aslan who was suddenly overwhelmed by the urge to vomit. Fear ripped through him and he had felt phantom hands across his skin and then pain, so much pain, and Aslan had vomited, all over the desk and the textbook and he'd been sent to the nurses office to wait until Nadia could come all the way back from the city to collect him. He should have objected to them calling her, should have, at the very least, insisted on getting home under his own steam, but all he could do was lie there shaking and gasping in trying to understand what was happening to him. He'd been like that for an entire week afterward, unable to do anything but lay in bed and wait for it to pass.

When Nadia had asked him about it, gently, that first night he’d told her everything. Usually he tried to keep it all to himself, the night terrors and the hallucinations or whatever they were, afraid of what others would think, but he was so shaken up this time that he hadn't even tried to keep it a secret from her. Nadia had listened closely and then asked him, gently, if the man in his textbook had looked like the man it had killed his mother, and if they similarity in appearance might not have been the subconscious trigger for whatever this was. Aslan had thought about it and told her that yes, he supposed that they did look something like, and while that was the case he didn't think that she was right about it also being the cause. Sure both this man and the murderer were similar in age build and hair color but only in the ways that they shared those similarities with thousands of other men, and maybe the way they made his skin crawl gave them something more concrete in common but even then they were far from the same. No, there was something else about this man, something about him that seemed to make him the embodiment of the very worst of Aslan’s nightmares. He had thought about going back through the book, or rather the replacement copy that he'd needed to get after throwing up all over the first one, to read the caption under the image, but he didn't want to risk seeing the man's face again.

Aslan straightened, pushing himself away from the lampposts, and forcing down his memories with everything he had, he was not going to collapse in the middle of a New York City Street, he was not!

Furious with himself Aslan pressed forward until he stood beside the stranger. He cleared his throat.

“Hu?” the stranger turned to look at him, the expression of his eyes masked behind the darkness of his sunglasses.

“I was wondering.” Aslan said dryly. “What you were doing staring at Nadia's restaurant.”

“you know Nadia?” The stranger asked sudden interest in his voice.

Aslan was slightly taken aback by that response but he nodded. “Yeah. She's my foster mother, which is why want to know what you're doing eyeing her business.”

“Oh.” The other teen responded, looking rather sheepish and running a hand through his mohawk. “I um… I don't know really. I mean I want to talk to her, I need to talk to her but I can't seem to work up the guts to go over there and face her…”

“So you know her then?”

“No… I mean…I'm not sure… I mean maybe? It's like I'm drawn to her, to this place, I don't even know how I found it but I did and it's been like something out of a dream…” He shook his head and smiled ruefully at Aslan. “Sorry man I know that must've sounded kind of crazy, but I swear I'm not here to hurt Nadia that's what you're worried about.”

Aslan shook his head slowly, his lips half parted in surprise. “No, it didn't. Well maybe it did but… I know the feeling.” He smiled grimly thinking of how he'd felt only moments before.

“Do you?” The stranger looked interested. 

Aslan nodded. “Yeah, almost like a memory but not…”

The stranger nodded, surprise clearly written across his face. “Yeah, that's just it! damn man but that's weird!” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I'm Zhang Yang by the way, but most people call me Shorter.”

“Shorter?” Aslan cocked an eyebrow at him, giving him a ride grin, as much the hide the way that a sudden overwhelming sense déjà vu was sending shivers up his spine as anything else. “With your height?”

Shorter rolled his eyes. “Everyone says that now but if you'd known me before my growth spirt wouldn't have had to ask.”

Aslan snickered.

“What about you?”

“I’m_” Aslan hesitated, remembering all the jeers laughter about his name that it started with Arthur and his gang but had picked up again at Aslan's new school once it became clear that the new kid didn't fit in with his classmate’s expectations of him. Then he remembered Nadia's words the last time he'd been at Chang Dai and a name that she'd refused to answer questions about ever since. “Ash.” He said.

“Yeah. Of corse.” Said Shorter. “I mean,” he shook his head, “cool.”

There was a moment of awkward silence. Aslan was the one who broke it.

“So,” he asked “how long have you been watching Nadia's restaurant?”

“About a month.” Shorter sounded sheepish again.

“A month!”

“Yeah… I mean not the whole time obviously, got to sleep at some point, but a lot of it. Pathetic isn't it? I'm right here but I can't bring myself to face her even after coming all this way…”

“All this way?”

“Kind of a runaway. Well sort of?” He frowned briefly. “Can you be a runaway if you're 18?”

Aslan shrugged.

“But yeah, sounds stupid to say I ran away to this restaurant cause I never even seen it before but that's what it feels like.”

Aslan chuckled a little, “I know that feel.”

“You do? I thought you said Nadia was your foster mom.”

“She is but that came later.”

“Got it. I'll tell you mine if you'll tell me yours?”

“Sure.” Aslan shrugged, “you start.”

Shorter lounged against the side of the building just behind him. “Not much to tell really. I'm from California, the Chinatown LA. I'm the oldest of four so there was never much money. Qiang Lei is three years younger than me and the twins, Ben and Tian are two years younger than her so the house was always pretty crowded too. It was hard on my folks having to feed all of us and then I went and got involved with gang stuff and that just made more trouble for them in the end. It was pretty clear that wherever I was going after high school it wouldn't be college and I've always wanted to come to New York. I don't know why but I've been dreaming about the place since I was a kid so I got a job, saved up, and when I turned 18 I bought myself a plane ticket and here I am. What about you?” 

Aslan looked at the ground. “My mom was murdered.”

“oh er sorry man didn't mean to pry…” Shorter rub the back of his neck awkwardly.

“It's fine. I don't mind.”

 With the exception of Nadia he never told anyone about this, let alone some stranger on a street corner who'd both admitted to being involved with gangs and admitted to spending the last month staking out Aslan foster mother's restaurant, but for some strange reason he didn't mind talking about it with Shorter. Despite everything Shorter had an easy-going attitude and a disarming air that put Aslan at ease and Aslan felt himself relaxing into a feeling of companionship that he hadn't known for a very long time if ever. 

“I was 12 when it happened and after that I didn't have anyone. My dad's been out of the picture my whole life. I don't even know who he is I don't have any other family and…” Aslan remembered the overly friendly policeman who had always been offering him rides, “I knew I couldn't trust the cops in my area to find me somewhere safe so I had to run for it. I was on the streets two weeks when I got beat up pretty badly and ended up running for it straight to Nadia's restaurant. She took me in, even moved out to the suburbs so that I’d have a safer neighborhood to live in.” He shrugged. “When I asked why she'd go so far for stranger kid she just told me that I reminded her of someone who'd been like a brother to her. She won't talk about him but from the little I've heard her say it sounds like he was killed fairly young and so was her actual little brother and that's why she wanted me out of the city. She made me promise when we moved to the suburbs four years ago that I wouldn't come back here and I figured that, considering how much I owe her, keeping my promise was the least I could do.”

“So what are you doing here now then?” 

“Trying to find out who killed my mother. When she died I found some sort of drug around her body and in a drawer at her desk. I know it's not much to go on but it's the only clue I have. I took some when I left and I've been holding onto it ever since but I haven't had any way to find out what it is. I've been trying to do research into drugs and chemistry but this sort of dense chemistry textbook I need isn't the sort of thing they make e-books out of or the sort of thing that my towns small local library has. I need more resources. After Nadia took me in I stayed in school instead of continuing to pursue my mother's killer as a sort of thank you to her but I'm finished with high school now too so…”

“Finished with high school! How old are you?”

“16.”

“16 and finished with high school, damn you must be some sort of genius kid huh?”

Aslan just shrugged.

“Anyway I told her that I didn't want to go to college until I was 18, so Charlie, that's her husband, asked me what I planed to do until then. I told them that I wanted to do some reading, audit some classes, maybe get a job and that I wanted to go into the city to do it. Charlie told Nadia that she couldn't keep me out of it forever so here I am.”

“And what's your plan now then? Since I'm guessing you were lying about the whole reading classes job thing.”

Aslan smiled a little at that. “Not entirely. Well the job thing was a lie but as for the other two, I'd like to audit some advanced chemistry classes at Columbia or NYC if I can although I expect I'll be mostly teaching myself stuff using some of the science texts at the public library. I don't know anyone I can take the powder to safely so I've got to run tests on it myself and I don't have much of it so I can't risk making any mistakes or wasting it.”

“Well genius kid maybe I can help you with that.”

“Oh yeah,” Aslan smirked at him. “You know advanced chemistry?”

Shorter ran a hand through his mohawk. “You don't need to sound so skeptical,” he complained.

Aslan just raised an eyebrow.

“Okay no I don't, but I do know an underground doctor who can have a look at that powder for you and save your masters in chemistry.”

“Wait seriously?” Aslan scrutinized Shorter’s faces though looking for the catch. “And you trust him?”

“Yeah. He's really old, like 80s or something, but they don't exactly make retirement plans for underground abortion doctors so he still seeing patients at least part-time. I got into a real nasty fight about a week after I got here and he found me and put me back together. Turns out the bastard who picked a fight with me was also making trouble for his patients so he told me he'd make it a freebie and that I could come back any time as long as I kept that son of a bitch out of his neighborhood.”

“And you'll take me to him?”

“Sure man, don't see why not.”

Aslan nodded. “All right, let's go.”

                                                            ***

The walk had been a pleasant one with Shorter regaling Aslan with stories about his younger siblings and their antics. Shorter was pretty chatty but Aslan found that far from minding he actually really enjoyed the other's company. He'd never had anything like it before. There’d been the occasional person that he was friendly with at his new school but he'd never actually had friends there anymore than he'd had at his old one. A bully had tried to start something with him only a week after he'd started there so Aslan, who had given up keeping his hands blood free the moment he'd found his mother's body, had made clear to the bully exactly how much he wanted to be left alone. After that he'd been suspended for three days and when he'd gotten back he'd found that neither the jocks, the bully among them, nor the nerds, who saw him as violent, wanted anything to do with him. And then, of course, he’d nodded off one day in class and woken up sobbing all over his desk and after that the rumors had started just like they had at his old school. This though, this was nice, this was what he'd always imagined friendship would feel like. There was something awfully nostalgic about walking through the streets of New York City with Shorter cracking jokes at his side but Aslan wasn't sure why that would be.

“In here.” Shorter cut through his thoughts, beckoning Aslan through a door and up a rickety flight of steps. They entered a small room that looked like a cross between an office and a lab and Shorter approached its only occupant, who looked quite elderly and who was hunched over asleep at his desk.

“Dr. Meredith! Hey Doc! Wake up!”

“Huh?”

The doctor slowly pushed himself up off the desk, adjusting his glasses and blinking at them through sleep blurred eyes. He glanced from Shorter to Aslan wearily before his eyes widened, focusing on Aslan and he sat bolt upright.

“Ash Lynx!”

Both Shorter and Aslan froze taken aback by the doctor's sudden cry. Somewhere in the back of Aslan’s head sirens were going off but before Aslan could begin to sort through what they might mean the old doctor shook his head and lifted his glasses to rub at his eyes with the back of one hand.

“Sorry, can't be, but you look just like… No nevermind… That was a long time ago.”

His eyes fixed back on Shorter. “Back again are you? What can I do for you this time? More holes you need patching?”

Shorter shook his head, grinning back at the doctor. “Nope, not this time, but I brought someone to meet you. This is Aslan. He's got something for you to take a look at.”

Aslan reached into his pocket and pulled out the plastic bag that he kept the powder in for all those years and handed it to the doctor.

“Can you tell me what this is?”

Dr. Meredith wiped his lenses off with the back of one sleeve and pushed his glasses back up his nose. Then he took the bag filled with powder and eyed it speculatively.

“If you leave it with me I can have a look at it.” Then he looked back up at Aslan. “Although it better not be some sort of crazy experimental drug that's going to bring an army of thugs down on my head this time.”

“This time?” Aslan echoed.

The doctor shook his head. “It's nothing, forget it, just my old brain playing tricks. But I don't work free you know.”

“Put it on my tab Doc.”

Aslan turned to stare at Shorter, surprised by the generosity of the other boys offer. The doctor, however, just shrugged. “Have it your own way then,” he said. “Now you two boys get out. I can't test this with you looking over my shoulder. You can come back tomorrow. I’ll have results for you by then.”

Shorter nodded in the two left the doctor’s office. Back out on the street again Aslan turn to Shorter.

“You didn't have to do that.”

Shorter just shrugged, “no big deal, like I said the Doc gives me a discount for keeping an eye on his place. Buy me a drink later and we'll call it even.”

Aslan shrugged. “If that's what you want.”

“So where to now genius boy?”

“Ash lynx.”

“Huh?” Shorter tensed slightly at the name and if Shorter felt even a fraction of the buzzing in his mind that Aslan was feeling around that name Aslan could understand why.

“He said I looked just like Ash Lynx. The guy Nadia said was like a brother to her, the one she said looked like me, his name was Ash too, what if they're the same person. I've been wondering about him ever since Nadia took me in but she wouldn't talk about him and I didn't know his last name so I couldn't look him up. Now though, all I need is a computer, which means I'm heading to the library.”

                                                                        ***

Aslan had felt so certain when he'd told Shorter where they were headed. He knew the library was the place for research but more than that he knew that it held answers for him the same way he'd always felt that it was the place to start looking for his mother's killer. Yet, as they approached the library he began to feel uneasy. A buzzing was starting to build in the back of his head and it got worse with every step he took toward the building. Furiously he tried to push the buzzing away, along with the blurred images that seemed to be coming with it. He was not going to freak out in front of Shorter! He was not!

“Ash, you okay?”

Aslan realized that this struggle must have been showing on his face more than he'd realized, because Shorter was looking highly concerned.”

“Ya, I'm fi_” Aslan began to say, taking one more step, and then pain exploded from his stomach.

Ash stumbled forward, gasping for breath. What was that? What had happened? He looked down and saw blood. What? A knife? There was a knife sticking out of him? Who had? He looked up. The figure on the other end of the knife was familiar. Lao! Furiously Ash shoved him away. Why now? Why now of all times? He didn't have time for this! He had to get to the airport! He had to get to Eiji! Eiji! The letter! Where was it? It had fallen when Lao stabbed him. Ash cried out in desperation, dropping to his hands and knees and searching frantically around on the ground for it, even as the blood seeping from his wound left stains of red to cover the pavement. He had to find it! He had to! He had to!

“Ash? Ash!”

Huh? What? Who was calling him?”

“Ash!”

Shorter?

“!...What?” Dimly Aslan registered Shorter's hands resting on his shoulders.

“Ash! Thank God! What the fuck happened?”

“Huh?” Aslan turn to blink dazedly up at him, his head still muddled and confused and filled with thoughts and images he didn't understand. Suddenly, eyes widening, he grasped frantically at his side, but the wound had gone, although the pain lingered. He realized that he was shaking and gasping and that he was kneeling in the middle of the sidewalk with Shorter leaning over him looking extremely worried. Fuck!

Aslan tried to scrambled to his feet, vainly hoping he be able to act as though everything was normal, but he stumbled and half fell forward, only managing to remain on his feet because Shorter grabbed him before he could end up back on the pavement.

“Wow! take it easy there man! What happened?”

“I..I don’t…” Aslan shook his head, everything still felt muzzy and scrambled. “ I was just walking and then I thought I remembered… someone stabbed me but it was just…” His voice trailed away as he realized how crazy he must sound but this complete surprise Shorter was nodding slowly.

“That happened to me once too. Some friends and I went into one of the really nice neighborhoods on Halloween to TP the place. I'd never been there before but when we went past this one house I suddenly started getting all these flashes through my head and just sort of collapsed. I've never been back there since…”

“I….I see.” Aslan knew he should've been more interested in Shorter’s story and a part of him was but that part was being drowned out by wave upon wave of blurry images. Perhaps sensing that Aslan was still in distress Shorter put an arm around his shoulder.

“Come on, lean on me. Let's get you inside so you can sit down.”

“The reading room.” Aslan managed to gasp out. “I need to go to the reading room.”

“Come on man you can't be thinking of doing research right now can you? How about you just sit in the entrance hall and…”

“The reading room!” Aslan all but snapped. “Please Shorter!”

Shorter sighed. “Okay come on.”

 The journey to the reading room was a blur to Aslan. At every step he felt himself consumed another wave of déjà vu as he dragged his body through the doors up the steps. This wasn't the first time he had made this trip, gasping and shaking and just hoping he'd stay on his feet long enough to reach his destination, only last time he hadn't had Shorter’s arm to lean on. At last they were at their destination and Shorter deposited him in a wooden chairs in front of one of the reference computers.

“Okay Ash stay here.” Shorter still sounded worried. “I'm going to get you some water I’ll be right back!”

Aslan nodded wosely. As Shorter departed the room at a pace just shy of a run Aslan leaned over the computer, trying to get his brain to focus on his surroundings instead of on whatever was going on in his head. He tried researching that too of course, sleeping disorders and hallucinations and anything else he could think of that might explain the nightmares and the occasional attacks of fear and nausea, but he'd never found anything that seemed to fit. Still, even if research couldn't tell him what was going on with him it might at least help him to focus his mind. Squinting at the computer screen Aslan opened up a new browser window, clicked on the search bar, and typed in the name “Ash Lynx.”

Dizzily he skimmed through the search results. There were several articles about gang wars and criminal proceedings from the 80s but the uppermost link was for an article entitled. “Ash Lynx revealed as mystery “Dawn” muse". Curious, and deciding that it was as good a place to start as any, Aslan clicked on it.

The article was all about some mysterious model for a famous photograph. Aslan tabbed down the page, hoping that the photograph had been included since he was curious find out if this Ash person really did look like him. He found what he was looking for about halfway down the page and froze.

What Aslan was seeing was impossible, absolutely completely utterly impossible. There was a photograph all right, but it was a photograph of him. This Ash Lynx didn't just look _like_ Aslan he _was_ Aslan, Aslan himself would've sworn it. He was seated on the ledge of a window, not looking at the camera, one knee drawn up to his chest and a thoughtful expression on his face, and except for the part where Aslan had no memory of the room or the clothes or the photo, he would have sworn that it was a picture of himself. His hair, his skin, his build, his body language, the shape of his eyes in the curve of his lips, everything looks just as it did every time Aslan looked in a mirror. If he could pinpoint any difference at all it might've been just that the boy in the photo looked a little older, a little sadder, and far more beautiful. Oh on a technical level their beauty was the same, but there was something about the photograph itself, something about the combination of the light and the colors and a certain gentleness of the lens that carried with it a level of beauty that Aslan had never seen on his own features before, and they _were_ his own features, he was sure of it.

Slowly, through his shock at seeing the photo and the muzzyness that still fogs some part of his brain Aslan mind began piecing things together until they took on the shape that made both no sense at all and all the sensible world. The idea of forming in his mind with absolute nonsense and yet, and yet… “Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” Aslan had been nine when he’d read Sherlock Holmes and he'd always liked that line, although he'd never thought to apply it to such an absurd scenario. Still though, Conan Doyle had a point. Aslan opened up a second browser tab and typed in the word “reincarnation.”

                                                                                    ***

By the time Shorter returned with a bottle of water Aslan was on his fifth new tab and halfway through an article on Theravada Buddhism. Seeing that the blonde haired boy seem to have recovered, at least for the most part, Shorter leaned forward over his shoulder and squinted down at the computer screen.

“What's that?”

“It's an article on reincarnation.”

“Reincarnation?” Shorter wrinkled his nose. “You serious? You believe in that stuff?”

Aslan sighed, leaning back in his chair and stretching his arms. “I think I do now. I know how it sounds but the only thing that makes sense.”

“Makes sense?” Shorter raised his eyebrows skeptically.

“Yeah. Think about it. All the stuff we were talking about with the weird flashbacks and the affinity for certain places and the collapsing, you said you've done it too, hell, think about yesterday.”

“Yesterday? What about yesterday?”

“Yesterday, when we hadn't even met yet, when we didn't even know each other existed, yet here we are today acting like we've known each other all along. I don't know about you but I'm not usually this chatty with strangers and I certainly don't let them take me to visit underground doctors or lead me places when they've scraped me off the sidewalk.”

Shorter frowned and shook his head. “Damn has it really only been a day? I guess you're right. It really does feel like longer!”

“And that's not even the weirdest part. look at this! This is a picture of that Ash Lynx person Dr. Meredith mentioned.”

Aslan flip back through the open windows, minimizing tabs until he reached the article. Shorter leaned farther over his shoulder to get a better look at the photo. He even pushed up his sunglasses, something Aslan had yet to see him do even indoors. He gaped at it for a moment then swore loudly.

“WHAT THE FU_”

“Shhhhh!” Aslan interrupted him, as several of the libraries other tenants turned in there seats to level glares at the two boys.

“Sorry sorry.” Shorter whispered, running a hand sheepishly through his mohawk, and waiting until the library's other occupants had turned away from them again before adding in an even softer tone.

“But fuck Ash! He really does look just like you!”

Aslan nodded. “And that's not all, my name isn't Ash.”

“Hu?”

“It’s Aslan. Ash is just a nickname I thought I'd try but when I told you to call me by it the first thing he said was ‘yeah, of course,’ as though you knew it was my name already even though you couldn't have because you're the first person I've ever asked call me that.”

“Well shit.” Shorter shook his head in bewilderment. “So this photo double of yours, who is he?”

“Don't know. This article is just about the process of finding out who the photo’s of.” There was a link directly below the photo to a Wikipedia article on the photo itself. Aslan clicked it. When the new article appeared he began, quietly, read aloud from it so that Shorter wouldn't need to squint over his shoulder.

“When it first made its debut in 1993 the identity of the mysterious model for the photograph titled ‘Dawn’ was unknown. But it was later revealed to be none other than the notorious Ash Lynx infamous as the most feared gang leader in all of New York history.”

“A gang leader huh?” Shorter raised one eyebrow at him.

A chill washed over Aslan. He continued reading.

“How the photographer met the Lynx and how he persuaded such ruthless individual to sit for photographs is unknown, although he was the subject of many of the photographer’s most highly acclaimed pieces. The photographer in question is Eiji Okumura…”

Aslan voice trailed away as a hard lump began to form in the back of his throat. His mouth curved around the syllables of the name as though they were prayer long forgotten. The name sent off a hundred thousand bells, each attached to a memory. Most of them belonged to the blurry fuzzy space at the back of his mind that he was desperately trying to keep at arms length so that it wouldn't drown him utterly, but not all of them. He had encountered the first part of that name twice before that moment, both times on his own tongue. The first time had been on the day of his mother's death and the second had been just minutes earlier.

Suddenly desperate to pull whatever knowledge he could from the article Aslan read on, not bothering the slow long enough to read out loud for Shorter. Suddenly he froze, a soft moan escaping his lips and he flopped against the chair back like a puppet with its strings cut, his eyes filling with tears.

“What? Ash?” Shorter looks genuinely alarmed again but Aslan barely even noticed. When Aslan didn't respond Shorter leaned forward over the other boy's shoulder, picking up reading in a low murmur at the point where Aslan had left off.

“The photographer in question is Eiji Okumura, who achieved a great deal of fame at a young age for the beauty his photographs brought to even New York city's darkest and most dangerous neighborhoods and inhabitants. Dawn, which was featured in Okumura’s gallery showcase in 1993 was his most famous piece and is still studied by photography students to this day. Tragically Okumura’s ascension as a great photographer was cut short, only months after the completion of the Dawn showcase, when Okumura was caught up in a gang dispute and killed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Aslan! At least has Shorter back again so that's something! This is the part where I reiterate my promise that this WILL have a happy ending I swear! Kudos and comments always supper appreciated! I'm really curious to hear what you all think! And as always feel free to come find me on twitter @ https://twitter.com/Fereael BF is like all I ever post about. (Also yes, Shorter and his family are all named for LOTGH and Kingdom characters... I couldn't resist.)


	5. What I've Been Waiting For

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow it's been a month??? When the hell did that happen?? Sorry about that but college has been a lot lately. Still I'm going to do my best to be a lot my regular with the updates in future! Enjoy!

Chapter 5 What I've Been Waiting For

 

I wonder what I've been waiting for

the time is ticking away

whenever I open a door

there's another one but I can't stay

I stop and think of you my friend

I wish you were by my side

-Kid, Opening 1 Legend of the Galactic Heroes Gaiden

 

“Wake up! Come on, wake up!"

Impatient hands tugged at his shoulder, trying to force him back to reality.

 

“Whaa” sleepily he attempted to bat them away. “Come on! You'll miss your first view of the city if you don't hurry up and look!”

 

“Seen it before Ibe-san…” He muttered, but still crack one eye, only to follow it with the other one almost immediately as he took in Kyoka’s very confused looking face mere inches from his own. She appeared to have been in the process of leaning over him to raise the window blind but had paused for some reason and was now eyeing him in bewilderment.

 

“What?” He asked, blinking up at her.

 

“Who’s Ibe?”

 

“I… He…” His voice trailed way in confusion. Who was Ibe? Dreams, Ibe was the name figure from his dreams, that was it. But why had he mistaken Kyoka for a dream fragment anyway? What else had he said? He'd said the name, Ibe-san, and also…

 

“And what you mean you've seen it before?” Kyoka thoughts seem to be running abreast of his. “I happen to know the only way you've left the country before is over the Internet.” Yes, what had he meant by that? He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, wondering where that comment could possibly have come from. “Besides,” Kyoka still wasn't done yet, “I’d have thought this was something you'd want to see considering you've been going on about this place for like forever!”

 

“Cut the poor guy some slack, he only just woke up.” Mikoto admonished from where he sat in the aisle seat on Kyoka’s far side. Kyoka ignored their classmate and went back to leaning over him in an attempt to open the window.

 

He had to admit she was right though. This was something he'd been talking about for forever. This place, this city. He didn't know when he'd begun dreaming of making this trip. He couldn't remember that far back, hell if he didn't know better he'd have thought he had been born with this singular wish already implanted in him. He had grown up looking and pictures watching TV shows set among the buildings now below him and with every image with every word his desire to actually stand there in person had only grown.

 

“Seriously Kyoka, you need to chill.”

She turned her head away from the window just long enough to stick her tongue out at Mikoto, but he ignored his classmates squabbles for even as she looked away Kyoka’s hand had succeeded in pushing up the blind and he'd automatic to look out at what lay beyond. Behind him Mikoto and Kyoka had resumed the argument that they'd been having on and off all flight and which had initially prompted him to seek refuge in sleep, but he was oblivious to it. Nothing mattered, nothing except the view out that window, and the turbulence of emotions rushing through him like the wind over the wings of the descending aircraft, for New York City lay below him. Eiji was back.

 

                                                                        ***

 

“Where to first?”

 

“How about bed? The jet likes not going to get rid of itself.”

 

“Oh come on! Our first day in a brand-new city, in a brand-new country, and you want to sleep?” Kyoka rolled her eyes at Mikoto. “Come on Eiji, tell him there are better things we could be doing with our time!”

 

“Well, I'm not particularly tired so I wouldn't mind going out exploring if that's what you want to do…”

 

Mikoto rolled his eyes. “Easy for you to say, you slept on the plane.” But he bent and began lacing his sneakers in preparation for going out, while Kyoka crowed her victory.

 

Yes Eiji, had slept on the plane, it was true, but no matter how exhausted he was Eiji had a feeling he'd still be on his way out to explore. He needed to be out on the New York City streets, needed to walk them, breath the air, take in the people. The cab ride from the airport to the hotel, instead of satisfying his longing for them, had only served to whet his appetite for the city still more. Besides, it wasn't like they'd have every day for sightseeing. There coach had given them the one afternoon off to get settled in but after that there'd be training and a strict schedule and even though they would still have some time to take in the sights, that time would be limited.

 

For a long time Eiji had thought that he would have to wait until he turned 18 and could travel on his own in order to make the journey he had been so longing for, but then this opportunity had presented itself like a gift from the universe. A training camp, his coach wanted to take the team for a month-long training camp in New York City. For a few, heart stopping moments, Eiji had been terrified that his parents would refused to let him come but they had always approved of his dedication to the team and so they had agreed, and now here he was and he wasn't going to waste a single moment.

 

Neither, it seemed, was Kyoka. No sooner had she dumped her bags in the hotel room she was to share with to the other girls on the team then she was hammering down there door and demanding to go exploring. Eiji understood her enthusiasm and he liked the idea of seeing the city with his friends but some small part of him couldn't help but wish that he could have done his exploring on his own. There was something in the city that called to him, something beyond the busy streets and the towering buildings, something he was desperate to place, to remember, something let his friends had no part in, something, _Ash_. The name fluttered its way to the forefront of his mind, like ghostly fingers sliding through his hair and across his cheek and he shivered, unsure where either the memory of the name or the touch had come from.

 

“Eiji! Eiji, you ready”

 

“Hu?” He blinked, “oh right, coming!" Eiji scooped his camera up from where he had deposited  it on his nightstand, and followed his friends out the door.

 

                                                                                    ***

“Where to first?” They had come about a block from the hotel and Kyoka appeared to be trying two taken everything possible in three different directions at once in her excitement. Mikoto appeared to be a bit more diffident, but Eiji could tell from the sparkle in his eyes that he was just as fascinated by their new surroundings as the other two.

 

For his part Eiji was torn. Half of him wanted pause, take several long moments and just soak in the city around him while the other half wanted to run, run and keep running, to see everything, everyone, _Ash_. The name whispered its way through his thoughts again and again Eiji his left to wonder at its origin.

 

“Well?” Kyoka demanded.

 

Eiji just shrugged, still caught up in his strange dichotomy of emotion.

 

“Mikoto?” Kyoka current toward the other boy.

 

“How about the library?”

 

“No!”

 

Both Mikoto and Kyoka turn to stare at Eiji who had come crashing back to earth at the sound of Mikoto’s suggestion. He wasn't quite sure where the outbursts had come from but what he did know was that at the mere thought of the library a thousand unpleasant emotions had rushed through him like a tsunami leaving him without any clear understanding of their origin but with the absolute certainty the library was not a place for him to go, not if he didn't want the tsunami to drown him anyway.

 

“Um ok sure… We don't have to go there if you don't want.” Kyoka reassured him hastily. Both of his friends were still staring at him, completely taken aback by such an uncharacteristic outburst.

 

“Sorry…” Eiji blushed slightly, rubbing at the back of his neck self-consciously. “I just, I'd rather not go there, that's all…”

 

“Yeah, sure, no problem.” Mikoto frowned at him in bewilderment but didn't ask.

 

“Is there anywhere you'd like to go instead?”

 

“I don't know, all over.” Eiji shrugged, still a little sheepish. “How about we start with Times Square?” It suggested it at random, the place held no special lore for him, but his words had there desired effect. Kyoka nodded in enthusiastic assent began walking again, gesturing the other two after her and Mikoto followed, although not without shooting one more concerned look in Eiji’s direction.

 

                                                                                    ***

By that evening they really had been all over the city, Times Square and Rockefeller Center and the Strand bookstore. Mostly though they’d just wondered and Eiji found himself taking the lead. He seemed to have an instinctive grasp for the way the New York City streets worked and his hunches about what direction their next destination lay in always seemed to be accurate. Kyoka teased him that he must've picked it up from all those American TV shows he was always watching and maybe she was right although somehow he wasn't so sure.

 

As it got onto evening though Eiji was starting to think that he'd finally made a wrong turn. The neighborhood they had ended up in was no longer a part of the flashy, tourist filled, downtown which they had been exploring, but someplace a lot shabbier and more graffiti covered. It was, perhaps, someplace where they shouldn't be walking unaccompanied at sunset. Still Eiji kept going, some instinct driving him until he stood at the top of a flight of steps leading down to what sounded like it must be a club or bar below. Without thinking about it he was about to take a step down the staircase when a hand descended on his shoulder, pulling him back.

 

“Hey, Eiji.” Mikoto began “I'm not sure if we should b_”

 

 A sudden shout interrupted him and all three spun to their right to see a boy come dashing around the nearby corner. As he sprinted down the street toward them the boy glanced back over his shoulder and as he did so one sneaker clad foot caught on an uneven patch of sidewalk. The boy stumbled forward, letting out another cry as he crashed to the ground a few yards away from them.

 

“What the! Eiji!” It took until he heard Kyoka’s shout for Eiji to realize that he was moving. Somehow the command to do so had bypassed his brain and gone straight his legs which were in the process of attempting to get him to the fallen boy as fast as they could possibly go. What the? Eiji shoved the thought to the back of his mind, it didn't matter. What mattered now was the boy who should have been pushing himself to his feet by now but was still lying, groaning, on the sidewalk.

 

Eiji reached him swiftly and dropped to his side.

 

“Are you all right?”

 

The boy looked up, grimacing. His eyes widened when they met Eiji’s and he seemed take aback for a moment but then he shook his head. Then the boy glanced quickly over his shoulder as though checking for pursuers.

 

Automatically Eiji’s eyes followed his and as they did so they took in the rest of the boy’s body and Eiji let out a soft gasp of horror as the reason for the boy’s immobility became apparent. The results of the fall were not his only injuries, far from it in fact. There were bruises on the boy’s face and arms and bloody rips in his genes and Eiji knew instinctively that the kid had been beaten.

 

“Who did this?”

 

The boy grimaced up at him. “A no good street thug. You should get out of here before they catch up and decide you're a friend of mine.”

 

Eiji shook his head firmly. “You're in no fit state to run and I'm not just going to leave you here to get beaten.” He reached forward, sliding one arm under the boy's chest and began turning him over, preparatory to lifting him.

 

“What the?”

 

“Hey Eiji, what are you doing?” The boys question was cut off by Kyoka who had come racing to Eiji’s side, Mikoto at her heels.

 

“Eiji, what?” Mikoto sounded as confused as Kyoka and even more concerned.

 

“We’re not just going to leave him here.” Eiji’s voice was firm and where the other two had spoken in Japanese Eiji spoken English so that the boy would also be able to understand him. It was only then that he realized that he had been speaking English to the boy all along, the transition had been so instinctive that he hadn't even noticed his own shift in languages.

 

“But Eiji” Kyoka tugged anxiously on his sleeve. “I don't think this is safe…”

 

Mikoto nodded, glancing anxiously around them. “Kyoka’s right, we shouldn't get invol_”

 

“I'm not leaving him!” Eiji was surprised by the vehemence in his own voice, almost as surprised by the way he had to quickly slam his mouth shut in order to choke back the word _again._

 

Both of his friends goggled at him, shocked by the second outburst that day from the most mild-mannered kid in their class. The boy also looked taken aback, but then his shoulders relaxed a little and he made no objection as Eiji scooped him into his arms.

 

“You've got guts. I'll give you that.” He grinned ruefully as Eiji got to his feet. “But if you don't want to see them all over the pavement you're probably going to want to run…”

 

Mikoto’s eyes widened and Kyoka actually took a step backward at those words, a look of fear spreading across both of their faces, but Eiji just nodded. “This way” tightening his grip he said around the boy and nodding back in the direction from which they'd come. Then he began running, his two friends in hot pursuit.

 

They had gone a few blocks, far enough that they were once again in on more well occupied street, when Eiji came to a stop, stumbling against the brick wall of a building and gasping for breath. Eiji was an athlete, a talented one who had spent a large portion of his free time for the last several years training, yet there was a difference between running laps to strengthen his legs and running down New York City streets with an injured boy in his arms. A moment later Kyoka and Mikoto came to a halt beside him, less winded but looking far more unnerved by the incident.

 

“Um Eiji, about all this…” Mikoto began tentatively but Eiji held up a finger, indicating that he still needed a moment to catch his breath before he was ready to answer any questions.

 

“Hey, I can't understand what your friends saying but I'm guessing at something along the lines of him being worried about you getting involved with me and he's got a point.”

 

Eiji glanced down at the boy who he was still holding. The boy wriggled in his arms. “You can put me down now by the way.”

 

“Um right.” Eiji lowered him gently to his feet. “But are you sure you're up for walking?”

 

“Yeah, I'll be all right now. I've got a friend who runs a bookstore just down that way,” he nodded at a nearby cross street. “I should be able to make it there just fine.”

 

“Are you sure it's safe for you though?” All three of them turned to look at Kyoka who shrugged her shoulders. “What? We just ran that far. I want to at least make sure you get home okay after that.” Her English was not as good as Eiji’s but it was still plenty good enough to be understandable.

 

The boy grinned up at her. “Yeah I'll be fine.” Then he chuckled, running a hand through his hair. “Boy are you guys strange though, doing all that for a stranger. I like it. You've got guts! Maybe I'll see you around!”

 

He took a step in the direction he'd indicated, waving back at them with one hand, and Eiji was relieved to notice that he was only limping a little. Then the boy turned to glance back at them. “Say, what are your names anyway?”

 

“I’m Kyoka Sachi.”

 

“Mikoto Isana.”

 

“And what about strange guy with guts?”

 

“I’m Eiji.” He couldn't help but grin at that and the boy grinned right back.

 

“Well it’s good to meet you Eiji, I’m Skip.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple notes. First in the last chapter Ash and Shorter went to the library to use a computer instead of getting out their smart phones. The reason is that this story doesn't actually take place in modern day but actually in 2009 so texting and calling is about all their phones can manage. Second, Ash and Eiji are now the same age. All of this is that I can keep the original BF cast (Nadia, Charlie ex...) as young as possible. As always Kudos and comments are supper appreciated and give me the momentum I need to get the next chapter out and feel free to come screen with me about Banana Fish over on twitter! https://twitter.com/Fereael


	6. Memory

Chapter 6 Memory

Where timeless tides wash memory

Our sunless prisons makes us free

-Deltora Shadowlands By Emily Rodda

 

“Aslan?” “Aslan?” “Aslan!”

 

Who? What? Who called him by that name? Only Griffin ever had and Griffin was gone and…

 

“Aslan!” The voice was right outside his door now and it was accompanied by knocking.

 

“…Nadia?” Yes of course it was Nadia, who else could it be?

 

The door swung open and Aslan felt like he was seeing her double. He saw her once as she had been to him for all those years, A mother like figure, stern sometimes but always kind, the only person he'd ever really trusted since his own mother's death. He'd never even warmed up fully to Charlie for all that the man had been doing his best to be a father to Aslan since the day Nadia had declared that she was taking him in. Yet Aslan saw her a second time also, this time as he had always known her, still older, still kind, still mothering, but not a mother, a sister maybe? His feelings toward her were muddled, confused, he cared about her, that hadn’t changed, he wanted to protect her, but there was also guilt, so much guilt and shame too. How could he face her after what he had done, after he'd…

 

“Aslan?” The bed creaked as Nadia sat herself beside him and rested her hand lightly on his shoulder. Her touch steadied him, helped him focus in on the here and now rather than the blurry something that had been drowning him since he stood outside the library.

 

“Did something happen when you were in the city today?” Her voice was gentle.

 

He shrugged, "it was fine.”

 

“You had another one of those episodes didn't you?"

 

He nodded slowly.

 

“What happened?”

 

“I… I don’t… I went to the library and…” He shook his head.

 

An odd look flashed across Nadia's face, there and gone in an instant before she carefully concealed it again behind a look of kind concern. Aslan noticed it and he remembered the sudden pain below his ribs and he decided not to ask, he was pretty sure he already knew.

 

“I'm glad you made it home safely.” Nadia was saying and to Aslan it seemed like the words “this time,” hung in the air unsaid between them for a moment before she continued. “Maybe you should rest at home for a few days before you try going back to the city again. I know you want to audit classes but you could consider taking some online at least for the semester.”

 

Aslan shook his head. “I'm okay Nadia, really. I'm going back tomorrow.”

 

“Are you sure…?”

 

He nodded. “I am, besides I told a friend I'd meet him.”

 

“A friend?” There was genuine surprise in Nadia's voice and Aslan understood why, after all he didn't have any friends. “Is this someone you met today?” Now her voice had turned suspicious.

 

“Yeah, we met at the library. He just finished high school and isn't quite sure what he wants to do yet either so he also figured he'd start by auditing classes. His names S-Zhang.” Aslan had been about to say “Shorter” but caught himself at the last moment. He was trying to allay Nadia's suspicions and casually invoking that particular name would do precisely the opposite. “We said we'd get lunch tomorrow look through course catalogs together.”

 

“Well all right then,” Nadia's eyebrows were still slightly raised but the absolute casualness of Aslan’s tone seemed to have reassured her.

 

She stood. “It's midnight and I've got to be back at the restaurant early to do inventory tomorrow so I'm going to go to bed but if you want to talk about it some more remember that I am here for you Aslan.”

 

 He felt like he should say something in response to that but he couldn't quite find the words and then she was gone and the door had closed behind her and he was alone again with the whirling mass of thoughts that made no sense and the feelings that he couldn't explain and the theories that were impossible and, worst of all, a single irrefutable fact: Eiji was dead.

 

***

Aslan met Shorter outside of Chan Dia early the next morning.

 

“You look like hell.” Was the first thing that Shorter said to him so naturally Aslan insulted him back but he knew Shorter was right. He'd been awake all night, tossing and turning and trying desperately to understand what the hell had gotten into his brain. Some of the night had been spent pondering, piecing together the bits and pieces of feelings and the nightmares that had haunted him his whole life with yesterday's impossible idea. Reincarnation. He knew that even seriously considering it for a moment was ridiculous yet the more he thought about it the more it made sense, and continuing to think about it was also a very good way to distract himself from the tears that had racked his body for much of the rest of the night. “Eiji Dead.” Those two words had ripped through his soul in a way he hadn't even known was possible, attacking something at his core with a strength that even his own mother's death hadn't been able to match. He still didn't know who this Eiji was, or had been, still didn't know why the mere knowledge of his death should leave Aslan wishing for his own demise, but it had, and that fact, more than anything else, was what left Aslan certain that his wild theory was correct.

 

As they walked to Dr. Meredith’s clinic Shorter seemed to pick up on Aslan’s mood, or perhaps, Aslan thought, he was feeling his own memory dysphoria. The older boy's voice turned kind and he even draped an arm casually around Aslan’s shoulders. Aslan was slightly surprised by the physical contact but he allowed it and found to his greater surprise that he actually didn't mind.

 

This time when they entered Dr. Meredith's rooms the doctor was awake and waiting for them. He blinked up at the two boys from under bushy gray eyebrows and said, without bothering with any welcoming niceties, “well, it isn't anything too sinister this time.”

 

“This time?”

 

The doctor ignored Shorter’s question. “It's just good old-fashioned Coke, though where you got it from is another story and one I don't want to know.”

 

“Coke?”Aslan furrowed his eyebrows, his surprise cutting through the malaise surrounding him as nothing else had.

 

Shorter whistled

 

The doctor nodded. “this is pretty strong stuff too, valuable.” He held the bag with the remnants of the white powder in it out to Aslan. “You should take it back. I don't want the trouble that comes with it.” Aslan nodded and stuffed it back in his pocket.

 

Back out on the street again he turned to Shorter and asked. “You sure the old guy knows what he's doing? He seems like he might be a bit past it.”

 

Shorter shrugged. “The doc’s old all right but if he says it's Coke it's Coke.”

 

Aslan frowned down at his feet. “So then what was my mother doing surrounded by the stuff?”

 

“Ash,” Shorter’s voice was uncharacteristically kind, “do you think it's possible your mother was dealing?”

 

“What the fuck?” Aslan’s head snapped up. “No that’s…” His voice trailed away as he remembered murmured late-night phone calls and being told not to go digging through the drawer where he'd found the powder and how, as poor as their finances had been, they'd never quite run out of money. Was it possible that…

 

“Look! Over there!” A shout cut though Aslan’s thoughts. He turned to see four guys at the far end of the street. They looked like a rough crowd, all muscles and torn jeans and one of them was pointing directly at him and Shorter.”

 

“Oh Crap! Time to go!” Shorter grabbed Aslan’s and took off running, pulling him around the corner and away from the thugs.

 

“What the hell?” Aslan turned to glare at his friend, but he did it without slowing down. At the proximity of danger Ash’s instincts were kicking in and they were telling him that running was far more important than answers.

 

“You… remember… How I said… I met… the doc….after getting… beat by thugs…” Shorter's voice came out between rasping breaths.”

 

“Yeah.” Ash nodded, not breaking stride.

 

“Well that’s…them and…”

 

“In here!” Ash pulled Shorter sideways into the mouth of the small alley and behind a dumpster. The two stumbled to a halt and just stood there for a moment, hands on their knees, panting and getting their breath back. Then, in a voice barely above a whisper is not to be heard by their pursuers, Shorter continued.

 

“I pissed of their leader since I beat him up pretty bad before his thugs shut up and turn the tables on me so now him and his guys are after me every chance they get. If they catch us you should be more or less alright since they don't know you but that bastard leader of theirs wants me dead pretty bad. He’d have shot me the other day only he can't shoot.”  


“can't aim?”

 

“Nah, can't shoot. Rumor is someone slashed up his fingers pretty good when he was a kid back in Chicago so now he can't use them properly, couldn't pull the trigger. I'd love to thank whoever did it though, they probably saved my life.”

 

“Shorter.” Ash spoke slowly, trying to ignore the sinking sensation in his gut. “What's this guy's name?”

 

“Arthur, why?”

 

“Fuck!”

 

There was shouting from the street beyond them. Arthur's gang was getting closer.

 

“What?”

 

“Well,” Ash smiled grimly, “looks like you were wrong about him just being after you.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“I'm the one who wrecked his hand.”

 

“Oh. Well crap.”

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all!! Sorry it's been so long but I've just been swamped with work! I just graduated college though so as of now on I'll have more time to write and this fic will be updating regularly again I promise!! leave me a comment letting me know what you all think and come find me on twitter https://twitter.com/Fereael I'm always looking for more people to yell about Banana Fish with!


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